Wednesday, April 22, 2020

The Use of Scripture’s Self-Authentication to Solve Variants

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On this 40th (?) day of quarantine, I find myself wondering if there are writers in the Reformed tradition who use the doctrine  of Scripture’s self-authentication to decide between textual variants. Anyone know of clear examples?

For some background on the issue, see here.

A picture I found on Google

9 comments

  1. I like the egg-timer. "Solve this variant reading, I'll give you 4 minutes."

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    1. The sad part of your otherwise rather funny comment, (Dr. Head,) is that the egg-timer method would be an improvement in some cases.

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  2. When you say "in the Reformed tradition," do you mean to include only those from an earlier time period?

    I think that finding examples among modern TR advocates who consider themselves representatives of the Reformed tradition would probably not be difficult.

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    1. I am definitely not looking for modern TR proponents.

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  3. Dr. Gurry,

    Thank you for bringing up this interesting topic. I find your original (background) post and the comments very informative. The comments, especially, are a fine specimen of constructive discussion.

    Did you every write a followup post on how you "would try to address this issue"?

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    1. I did not. I probably should at some point.

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  4. In his comments on the Pericope Adulterae, one point John Calvin makes in favor of its inclusion is that it, "contains nothing unworthy of an Apostolic Spirit."
    https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom34/calcom34.xiv.i.html

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  5. Would the dominance pf the TR in this era be a sign of accepting this particular form of the text? In other words, they didn't question many variants because they simply acceoted all of it as the authentic word of God confirmed by the Spirit(?)

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    1. WCF 1.8 seems to necessitate a doctrine of preservation and thus, textual criticism would not even be needed then. At least in ny i interpretation of the statement.

      "New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all age."

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